THE EMPIRE'S WAR ACTIVITIES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 72, 1 July 1942, Page 3

THE EMPIRE'S WAR ACTIVITIES

RUSSIA'S YEAR OF HEROIC RESISTANCE With the march into Soviet territory a year ago, the Germans during twelve months tenacious attacks, in the bitterest fighting the world has ever known, have gained an area Approximately equal to the whole of the European territory seized by Germany in previous campaigns. With the aid of minor satellites such os Rumania, Hungary, Finland, Italy and Slovakia, Germany has been able 1 td gain much valuable equipment, but her most urgent and pressing need appears to be the control of the Caucasus oil. This is seen by the recent heavy onslaughts on the Kerch Peninsula, which the Russians had gained possession of after having relinquished it to the Germans a Jew months before, and the present all-out efforts by the Germans and Rumanians to smash the Soviet forces from the Crimean Black Sea naval base of Sebastopol. The Ukraine, rich wheatland of the Soviet and industrial belt, is practically under German control except for an area beyond Kharkov, where further heavy fighting has been going on during the past months. The Germans, at the end of last summer, were only 20 miles from the' heart of the Soviet capital, but when the Russians launched their great counter-offensive shortly after Christmas and the recapture by them of the strategically important town of Mojaisk, the threat has been sufficiently removed, and Smolensk appears to be the focal point on the central front. Leningrad, too, has been practically besieged since' before last Christmas, but has put up a stout resistance and it is stated that there is a direct rail line open from Leningrad to Moscow. The present line runs from Taganrog on the Sea of Azov coast to Stalino and Kharkov in the Ukraine, to Kursk, Orel, Bryansk, "Vyazma, Smolensk and Rzhev on the central front, Velikiye Luki, Staraya Russa, Novgorod and Leningrad, and on the northern front and from Petropavovsk to Murmansk on the Arctic.